The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 335

Chapter 335: Why Do They Call You Alpha?

Gavriel Sterling watched two men prepare for a wedding and understood, with the slow clarity of a knife turning, that one of them was marrying the love of his life and the other was handing him the rings.

The corridor outside the ceremonial hall was wide enough for four men to walk abreast, lined with pillars carved from white stone that caught the morning light and fractured it into geometric patterns across the floor.

Tristan Aelindor was pacing. The pacing was unnecessary, because the prince was ready and had been ready for six hours, but his body required movement the way his mouth required words, and both were operating at capacity.

Lucian Moon leaned against the opposite pillar with his arms crossed, watching the pacing with the quiet patience of a wolf who had watched this man pace many times before.

"You are going to wear a trench in the floor," Lucian said.

"The floor can handle it. The floor has handled worse."

"The floor has never had to endure you in ceremonial whites. That alone is a structural test."

Tristan stopped. Looked down at himself. The ceremonial garment was immaculate, tailored to the standards of Fae royalty, white and gold with a high collar that framed the jaw he was currently clenching and unclenching at irregular intervals.

"I look incredible," Tristan announced.

"You look like a man who has been awake since before the sun and is running on adrenaline and denial." Lucian tilted his head. "Are you sure about this?"

"Am I sure?!" Tristan rounded on him. "I have been sure since I was twelve years old. I have never been more sure of anything in my life."

"I meant the collar," Lucian said. "It looks tight."

Tristan’s mouth opened. Closed. "The collar is fine."

"You keep touching it."

"I am adjusting it. There is a difference."

"The difference is the word you chose. The result is identical."

Gavriel, invisible in the corridor, pressed his lips together. The dynamic between them hadn’t changed since they were ten. It would never change. Two boys who had signed a treaty on a leaf with berry juice had become two men whose loyalty ran deeper than crowns and kingdoms, and the foundation of that loyalty was the absolute inability to let the other one have the last word.

Tristan resumed pacing. Three steps left. Three steps right.

"How is the wolf kingdom?" he asked, and the question carried genuine warmth underneath the forced casualness.

"Thriving."

"Thriving. You gather a few hundred wolves into a territory, put a crown on your head, and suddenly you have a vocabulary."

Lucian’s mouth curved. "It is called a pack, Tristan."

"It is called a pack." Tristan stopped pacing long enough to consider this. "And they call you what, again?"

"Alpha."

Tristan’s face went through four stages of reaction in two seconds. Processing. Recognition. Disbelief. Then a laugh erupted out of him so hard he bent at the waist, one hand braced against the pillar, the sound bouncing off the ceremonial stone and filling the corridor with the specific acoustic signature of a Fae Prince discovering the single greatest title in the history of organized leadership.

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